I gardened in SF clay for decades so I know what you're talking about. You cannot work California clay in January. That is the rainiest month, and right now you've gotten huge amounts of rain even for January. Wet clay should not and cannot be worked. I never planted anything in the ground (pots only) in December or January - the clay is too wet and too cold. A planter box should have purchased soil mix in it. Not clay. The comment about using plastic is to protect soil about to be planted in from getting excessively wet. Not for the whole yard. I would instruct my clients to tarp the area they wanted me to plant fruit trees in so it would be workable. Once clay is wet, you have to wait for it to drain a few days before you can work it. (Hence the tarping beforehand.) Squeeze a bit in your hand. If it squeezes through your fingers and remains in one piece with ribbons sticking out where it came through your fingers, it's too wet. It should crumble at least a little bit before you try to work it. When it's dry enough, compost is the best thing. Gypsum does not work in California clay. You will not transform it overnight, or even in a year or two. It will always be clay, and that's not a bad thing - I miss clay. Here I'm gardening in dirty gravel, with no water retention or nutrient retention or any measurable organic matter. Most trees and shrubs will grow in clay just fine, with annual additions of a little compost. Lettuce and other vegies are a different story, they need a looser soil. That's where mounding up amended soil comes in. Dig up the clay, add some compost and maybe some purchased topsoil, and mix it all together and heap it up above grade. Don't just lay stuff on top of the clay and then plant in it, as water will sit on top of the clay and the plants' roots will then be sitting in water. Mix it up so it grades from amended soil to the native clay. Compost helps any soil, clay or sand. You just can't work clay soil after all that rain you've gotten. You'll have to wait for it to dry a bit.

Yeah, I just don't know either. They said in 'slight' concentrations. And the zep is concentrated. So maybe it is actually 50 parts water to 1 part zep for one and perhaps 25 water to one part zep for another concentrate. 50/50 seems like a strong mix since the zep is quite concentrated to begin with. Oh shoot, I don't know, but I'm going to give it a try if/when the flies show up again. I'll start with a very diluted mix and take it from there. For now the "flies" are gone...again. I used some Safer Soap first and then washed all the leaves and stems with a weak solution of dish det. and water...then brought the plant inside. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the flies didn't come in with the EE. It looked very clean when I brought it in a couple days ago. So far, so good. No signs of the flies yet. Over the Summer I had used the insecticide and the Safer Soap but the darn flies would always return in a few days. Ah well, time will tell. :) Thanks for your responses, John. Linda

Hey, just thought I'd add another update, as my little planting continues to grow and change. I was inspired by wantonamara and decided to lop off the main stalk of the kalanchoe since it was getting to be too large for the arrangement. I think it looks great now, and all the plants seem to be flourishing. It's amazing how much this little planting has changed in a year, and it's taught me a lot about the importance of good light for succulents! If you look closely, you can see the effects of variable light conditions on the coloration of the aeonium "kiwi". My plant has white and pink edges and some burns on the outer leaves from a period where it was exposed to intense afternoon and evening light during most of the summer. I moved it to a more sheltered position around late July, and all the new growth has been bright green. It sure makes for a pretty contrast!

Ditto everybody else, Karla! Anywhere where you put organic matter, they will come--and if there's enough for them to eat, they will proliferate! If you have room, I recommend you start a compost pile that's built directly on top of the soil. I didn't even realize what I was doing when I started my pile, but I started throwing all my vegetable matter on the ground in a corner (it was on top of hard packed, heavy clay that didn't appear to have ANY worms in it), hoping to make compost---and I wound up with a Worm Factory! It's wonderful! Of course I get the compost to use, but sometimes when I'm getting a pot full of the compost to use when I'm planting something, especially if it's in a spot that seems to be devoid of worms, I make sure I'm getting it from a part of the compost pile with a LOT of worms to "transplant." There are places where I can almost pull them out by the handfuls! This is from a Compost Tome I wrote a few years back! "Another observation! The most worms were in the wetter and more undecomposed parts of the pile. The compost at the very bottom of the pile, which was completely decomposed, had no worms at all in it. That surprised me a little bit since I--and probably we all--think of earthworms as eating earth, but I think I really knew better even before I noticed that. My compost pile is directly on the ground, which, tho I didn't realize it when I started it, is a really, really good thing since worms can migrate up out of the ground, and they absolutely thrive in the pile. I think that's been at least as much of a benefit from my compost pile as the compost itself!" If you have a compost pile or an area of soil with enough organic matter in it, I guess you could buy some and "plant them" to give you a jump-start, but if you plant them in places where there's nothing for them to eat, a/k/a organic matter, I think they'll do very poorly and may even migrate away from where you want them, in search of greener pastures! Work on getting lots of organic matter into your soil, and I think you'll be happily surprised to find that If You Build It, They Will Come! Let us know how your Worm Project is going as it progresses, Skybird Here is a link that might be useful: Reflections on Compost - 2008